Yancey Strickler

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

My name is Yancey Strickler. I'm a writer and entrepreneur who lives in New York City. I write about the internet, creativity, and my creative practice. My projects— cofounding Kickstarter, The Creative Independent, Metalabel, Dark Forest Collective, Artist Corporations, and Dark Forest Operating System — bridge those worlds.

What's the story behind your blog?

I started blogging in 2003. Just before the "MP3 Blogs" era. I was a music journalist and had more opinions to share than places that would print them, so I started an online space as an outlet. The blogging community was very small then. You felt like you knew everyone else who had one.

I kept that going until Kickstarter took over my life in 2009. I no longer had the excess energy to publish — everything went into the project. When I stepped down as Kickstarter's CEO in 2017, I started blogging again. For the first five months I did it without telling anyone. No one had the URL but me. I wanted the feeling of a public writing practice with no one else looking. Eventually I started to share, and that space evolved into my blog and homepage where I've expressed thoughts ever since.

The blog in 2003 was called Get Up Stand Up. I chose The Ideaspace when it returned. This is a phrase Alan Moore uses to talk about the dimension where ideas come from that I learned about in John Higgs' amazing KLF book.

I've used pretty much every platform: Blogspot, Wordpress, Tumblr, TinyLetter, Mailchimp, Substack, and now Ghost. I'm thankful of the import/export norms that developed around blogging from the very beginning. That's what makes portability between writing homes possible.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Calling what I do a "process" gives it too much credit. All of my writing tends to start with a feeling inside of me. That feeling is often one of agitation combined with curiosity. Something I can't quite figure out or I'm having a hard time putting my finger on. Writing is how I work through that.

The first drafts of what I write come out quickly. A mix of prose, outline, even poetry. I let the wider consciousness flow through the scope of the idea before filling things out too precisely. The more you let yourself detach while doing this, the more appears that you didn't expect.

Many of my most "successful" posts, in that people gravitate towards them, are what I think of as "idea sandwiches." You bring together two ideas that are unrelated and smoosh them together. This can lead you to discover something new that people will immediately understand.

"The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet", my most-read piece to date, is an example. It came from putting two separate thoughts together: my own feelings of alienation and anxiety online, combined with the Dark Forest Theory that I was reading about in Cixin Liu's "The Dark Forest" book (part of "The Three Body Problem" trilogy) on how and why societies might hide from one another. I smushed together that feeling with that idea and something new popped out.

In terms of tools, I use a variety of things. When I'm working on a book I use Scrivener. I love the folder/doc structure of the program, the way you can compile your writing into a cohesive whole. If I need to get an idea down quickly I default to opening a Google Doc. I journal every morning in a notebook or in Obsidian. At Metalabel we created our own blogging tool/culture using Notion. We call it "metablogging": internally public blogs where we think through things together. Our collective brain built organically over time.

If I'm writing something that goes deep into a specific subject matter, I'll seek out people I respect and get their perspective. Some of my most impactful work from the past few years came when I wrote something and chose not to publicly publish it. Instead I shared a private Google Doc with specific people who I was thinking of. The results from this form of non-publishing have been remarkable. The ideas behind Metalabel, Artist Corporations, the Dark Forest OS, the Bento, and other projects happened this way. By not rushing to publish an idea in seek of validation, and instead thinking more precisely about who I was most interested in hearing from, those seeds manifested as actual projects and collaborations in the wider world rather than just ideas of them.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I like blank spaces. Empty rooms. White walls. Metalabel has a studio where I go everyday. Mostly empty. Lots of plants. Always some sort of meditative music. A very womb-like vibe. A de-dopamined zone.

This isn't 100% necessary. I wrote "What's the difference between an artist and a creator" on two Amtrak trips between NYC and DC. You don't need perfection. But having a place where I feel comfortable to explore and know I won't be interrupted is my favorite luxury as a creative person.

While writing my first book, "This Could Be Our Future", I wrote in several different spaces that were hugely helpful. At the beginning I got a Craigslist sublet for an empty apartment with no internet. I took it for a few months and covered all the walls with post-its and index cards outlining the book. A year later when I was deep in the writing mode, I borrowed a spare bedroom from an 89-year-old friend in LA and wrote there each day while hanging out with her and watching her fix up her house (true story). During another period I took a few 48 hour trips out to 29 Palms, near Joshua Tree, where I spent days doing nothing but alternating between writing and jumping in the motel pool to cool off. Being able to immerse yourself in a project like that, even if just for an afternoon, is always a gift.

These were not always easy times at all. That's part of the reason for the separation. You really have to put all of yourself into the thing to get to the layers of clarity where real wisdom lives. But to have those challenges and eventual breakthroughs so closely associated with specific places that are not your normal everyday creates a very rich, contextual memory of the process.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

The blog is hosted on Ghost. Have tried lots of other places, but ultimately like the decentralized nature of Ghost combined with a strong toolkit. I use Umami for analytics, which is free and excellent. I still use Substack as another front page, and often alternate between which service I send emails from. My own personal website and blog are most important to me, but I'll sometimes find myself thirsty for network effects. Ugh. We're getting too close to my anxiety zones. Let's move on :)

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

Funny, but my first instinct is I wouldn't want to have readers. Of course that's not actually true, but when I think about the things that limit my sense of freedom or play from writing and publishing, asking for the audience's time most holds me back.

Because of my own relationship with email and newsletters, I've come to think of posting something (that also sends an email) as an ask or imposition on someone else's time. I'm saying to them, "Hey pay attention to me. Stop what you're doing and look at me." Which in no way is what my writing or output are about.

This is my own internal non-logic, I realize. People did sign-up. People tell me that my writing is meaningful to them. But this is something I've long carried. We even got pencils made at Metalabel that say: "Love to write. Hate to publish." I have one sitting in front of me right now.

Now this is not my advice to others, but it is where my first thought went. Because when I think about the goals of writing and blogging, it's to be free, it's to explore without limits. Audiences can be affirming for that. And it's generous and important to share whatever wisdom you experience in life. Blogging to me is a specific kind of writing — a personal practice and discipline that makes what's inward outward. Whatever it is that's in you, blogs are what comes out.

My personal feeling is that I don't like doing that if I know people are watching. I get self-conscious. I worry about bothering people. A place and attitude where I know I need to grow. Trying to do a better job of thinking about all the people that do want to hear from me rather than the people who don't.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

It does cost. I have about 10,000 subscribers, which means I'm paying Ghost about $1,000 a year to maintain a site with them.

There are cheaper ways to do this. I could make a site with Wordpress or Squarespace. I could use Substack. I could go the whole Craig Mod/Robin Sloan routes and make my own universes. Probably one day when I have time I'll do this and go all the way. But I like the combo of things Ghost gives (and that they started on Kickstarter).

I don't have paid subscriptions for my writing, but in the past 18 months I did experiment with releasing my work as collectible .zip files that people could pay what they wanted for.

First was a long essay called "The Post Individual" that I'd spent several years working on. I published it on my blog and released a limited edition Director's Cut zip file containing a PDF, video file, audio file, and all my research notes on Metalabel at the same time. There have now been 750 editions of these collected, with 400 people doing it for free, and another 350 contributing more than $1,000 for the work. That has felt like a very successful experiment.

I pay for a few people's Substacks and buy lots of zines, both on Metalabel and off. I enjoy directly supporting people whose work is meaningful to me.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

These days most of my attention goes to my projects, my family, or to books. But I'm always interested in Nadia Asparhouva, Jason Kottke, Ben Davis, Toby Shorin (read Toby's interview), Reggie James.

People who I think could be good to talk to: Laurel Schwulst, Kimberly Drew.

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

Sure here's my Soundcloud :)

This book that Josh Citarella and I made together on our creative practices is something people might like: On the Creative Life.

Antimemetics by Nadia Asparhouva, a book I edited and published with the Dark Forest Collective, is highly recommended.

A video I made that shares nine reflections from my creative career.